SOURCE: "Yeats's Epitaph," a review of Last Poems and Plays, in The New Republic, Vol. 102, No. 26 (1334), June 24, 1940, pp. 862-63.

In the following excerpt, MacNeice remarks on the resilience of the aging Yeats's poetic voice and observes that the poet's native Ireland features prominently in the works collected in his Last Poems and Plays.

During the last ten years, Yeats has had more bouquets from the critics than any other poet of our time. It was refreshing to see these critics and also many of the younger poets committing themselvesto enthusiasm for an older contemporary; their praise, however, was sometimes uncritical and sometimes, on a long-term view, injurious to its subject. There were reviewers who felt Yeats was a safe bet—safe because he was an exotic; anyone can praise a bird of paradise but you have to have some knowledge before you go buying Rhode Island Reds. There...